Behind Bengaluru’s budget plan

It’s budget preparation time again. The main purpose of publishing a budget every year, in any level of the government, is to clearly announce plans for spending public money so that the government can be held accountable. It is an estimate of income (revenue) and expenditure (spending) for the coming year.

The main function of Members of Parliament and Members of the Legislative Assembly is to approve the annual budget for the country or state in respective legislatures. Similarly, corporators elected by citizens are expected to approve the city budget.

Unlike union or state governments, we, in Bengaluru, don’t have a well-defined çity government. City government here is really a collection of multiple agencies that provide various services to citizens.

In Bengaluru, many parastatal agencies take care of various issues. Of all these agencies, BBMP is the closest to the city government as it represents the local self-government as mandated by the Constitution. Citizens can elect corporators at their ward level who in turn can elect a Mayor for the City. Unlike the budgets of parastatals (like Bescom, BWSSB, BDA, BMRDA or BMTC), the BBMP’s budget must get the approval of the Council and the Assembly before it comes into effect.

BBMP’s own-source revenue estimates in 2022-23 were more than estimates for revenue expenditure. This is a good trend in terms of indicating that there exists some resilience in terms of BBMP being able to sustain its revenue expenditure even if there are disruptions to the flow of funds from external sources. The Covid-19 pandemic has made clear the importance of Indian cities being able to mobilise their own resources.

Reforms needed

However, changes in the approach can make sure the money that comes to the city in the form of the budget is well-spent. Here are some things that could be improved.

Bottom-up budget preparation: The annual budget creation process must be bottom-up, at the ward level with the Ward Committee proposing a ward development plan, consolidated at the zonal level and then rolled into the city budget. Citizens should be able to access their ward, zonal and city budgets.

Outcome-oriented budget: There is no sanctity in spending thousands of crore year after year without measurable improvements to the quality of life. Quality of life can be measured as a set of indices, quality of footpaths, quality of roads, parks etc. Tracking quality of life consistently will help us better understand how effective the spending is and where the gaps are etc.

Infrastructure index: The peripheral areas that merged into BBMP need funds in order to improve basic infrastructure. The outer area’s contribution to property taxes is higher, but a fairer share is not going back to these areas. A ward-level infrastructure index will make the obvious gaps between core city areas and outer areas visible for making budget decisions.

Programme of Works: Ward Committees must be provided updated budget information regularly with respect to the Programme of Works, on a quarterly basis to track spending and raise issues in a timely manner, not just for BBMP but for all agencies. Jurisdictional boundaries of different agencies must be mapped for better coordination. The recent attempt by BMTC to map bus depots to BBMP wards is a good example.

Budget of other civic bodies: City budget must be clearly understood as the aggregation of budgets of all parastatals in addition to BBMP. To begin with, all the agencies must change their budget preparation process in terms of calendar and align their priorities based on the infrastructure index. For example, water supply and footpaths are missing in most of the newly added wards. Until parastatals like Bescom, BMTC and BWSSB actually publish their budget books, Bengaluru residents will have no idea about budget allocations for services at city, zone or ward levels.

Power to people

The city is slowly moving towards relatively more decentralised governance at the zonal level with the introduction of the BBMP Act 2020. Combined with Ward Committees, this offers a ray of hope for citizen participation in monitoring public works and enhancing accountability at ward and zonal levels.

With the recent publication of the Programme of Works by the BBMP, citizens can have a better insight into what’s happening to their money. Ward Committees can ensure budget allotments to their ward are actually put to productive use.

In the BBMP Budget 2021-22, for the first time ever, the BBMP announced that each Ward Committee would receive Rs 60 lakh (Rs 20 lakh for potholes, Rs 20 lakh for footpaths and Rs 20 lakh for borewells) and the Ward Committee can deliberate on how to use these funds.

Additionally, the BBMP budget also declared that 1% of property tax collected in a ward goes to the Ward Committee to spend on ward-level public works. These two proposals are in the right direction, but have not been implemented fully.

Participatory budget

The BBMP has a unique participatory budget programme, ‘MyCityMyBudget’ that enables ordinary citizens to have a say in the city budget. This has been designed in collaboration with Janaagraha,

This year, the Bengaluru Ward Samiti Balaga, a collective of various civic and social groups that actively participate in Ward Committees, is driving the efforts to seek public input pre-budget and monitor works post-budget.

However, without elections to the BBMP council, we have no people’s representation in matters of city governance. Whether it is Union or state or city, without placing the budget before the elected representatives, the citizens do not have a say in public expenditure. Needless to say, holding BBMP elections is extremely important.

(The authors are Head of Civic Participation and Associate Manager - Public Finance Management at Janaagraha, respectively. Opinions expressed are their own)